What is The Taos Institute Commons?

For almost 30 years, the Taos Institute has fostered relationships between scholars, practitioners, students and change agents from around the world through conferences, courses, workshops, and by sharing resources in various ways. 

The Taos Institute Commons is an online community that offers you a way to meet and engage with others from across the globe, who are interested in social constructionist, relational, and appreciative theory and practices. It is also a convenient platform to find Taos Institute events, announcements, and resources - all in one place!

I value being part of an international community, having access to courses, books, workshops, and knowing what is happening and being done by Taos Institute fellows. - Dado Salem, Brazil

What you will find here

Ongoing conversations via discussion posts or private messaging

Content organized by topics

Member profiles with location, interests and contact information

Taos Institute events - listing, registration and links to attend

The latest Taos Institute announcements

Courses and Workshops offerings

and most importantly...

A rich exchange of ideas, knowledge, and practices

A place to learn, play, and challenge each other 

A global family that thrives thanks to a multiplicity of voices

A welcoming feeling of being at home

About the Taos Institute

The Taos Institute’s® mission is to bring together scholars and practitioners concerned with the social processes essential for the construction of reason, knowledge, and human value, and their application in relational, collaborative and appreciative practices around the world. 

Constructionist theory and practice locates the source of meaning, value and action in the relational connection among people. It is through relational processes that we create the world in which we most want to live and work.

Social constructionist dialogue – of cutting edge significance within the social sciences and humanities – concerns the processes by which humans generate meaning together.

Our focus is on how social groups and the relational practices within those groups create and sustain beliefs in the real, the rational, and the good.

We recognize that as people create meaning together, so do they sow the seeds of action.

Meaning and action are entwined.

As we generate meaning together we create the future.

An Invitation from Ken Gergen

Corona virus, interspersed storms and draughts, political turmoil, sprouting online economies, malware attacks from nowhere…. By all indications we are entering a new age of human history, one in which rapid and unpredictable change will become a daily challenge. What resources are required for living viably in a world of turbulence? In my view, a major shift is needed in our longstanding traditions of understanding. In particular, I believe it essential that we shift from what I will call a structured to a fluid orientation to our endeavors. The quest for symphonic perfection gives way to jazz improvisation. We move from established rules and principles to the flow of dialogue. The borders once established to ensure identity and permanence are opened to collaboration, cross fertilization, and transformation. Downstream efforts to understand events or patterns now past, are eclipsed by active efforts to build the kind of futures in which we – altogether – may live viably.

What better place to enact this vision than in a collaborative space that crosses all borders, beliefs, languages, and time zones?

Taos is a hope for the world! Its message - that we are interdependent - is what we need right now. - Rituu Nanda, India

Join The Taos Institute Commons to help us create promising futures, one conversation at a time.